Dear Editor:
Three weeks ago my letter to the editor said in part:
“It appears that ‘persons unknown’ meticulously manage blocks of voters through the absentee ballot process election after election, to the point where it is their normal way of voting. It is hard to be comfortable that the ‘chain of custody’ of every one of these ballots is limited to one person as required by election regulations……
“And then it becomes harder to accept the notion that absentee voters are given the privacy they deserve to pick the candidates of their choice without coaching or unrequested assistance.”
Assemblywoman Quigley’s LTE stated recent legislation reads “No person shall serve as an authorized messenger for more than 10 qualified voters in an election.”
This legislation is the culmination of an initiative started eight years ago after a Grand Jury expressed concerns about alleged absentee ballot abuses, noting “…that there was a four-fold increase in the number of absentee ballots in wards that are laden with senior citizen residences. While some might attribute this merely to innocent, aggressive canvassing and heavy voter turnout, we are not so sanguine,…
“While we in no way wish to frustrate any person’s participation in the electoral process by further refining the definition of incapacitated absentee voter, we do wish to end the practices we have previously described. Further, we seek to foreclose predatory politicians and their supporters from exploiting the law…”
The new amendments to the State’s Election Law, A-2451 restrict an individual “bundler” to helping no more than ten qualified voters apply for and submit mail-in ballots. It also allows only one person to be the messenger for a given voter: No other person shall attempt to do any of the foregoing.”
These amendments do not quite go far enough in eliminating the effect “bundling” has on election outcomes. The law needs to be further amended to make it illegal for individuals to work in concert to control larger numbers of overall ballots, by making Bearers delivering multiple ballots attest that they have performed messenger services independently and not as part of an election strategy with others.
Most importantly we need to increase voter turnout in local elections from the current abysmally low levels.
Perhaps our goal should be to get many, many more individuals to sign up to automatically vote “absentee” at every election. Getting a ballot in the mail time and time again may have the effect of getting those who do not vote in all but national elections, to mail-in vote in larger numbers in local elections. And it would, by its nature, make “absentee voting bundling” irrelevant.
Nothing in this letter is meant to suggest that any candidate in the recent municipal election was involved with absentee ballot bundling. In fact “bundlers” who assert that they put a candidate “over the top” do the public official more harm than good, since there is an inference that something is “owed” for the unrequested effort.
Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H. Hoboken
The opinions in this essay are solely those of Dr. Metsch and not that of any organization with which he is associated.